. . . . . entries for 31.3.08 . . . . .
I miss high school. I wouldn't want to go back now, though. It's not just the environment or the motions. It's the way I was.
. . . . . entries for 30.3.08 . . . . .
It appears as though this blog requires more clutter.
I have so much fruit in my possession right now. Five servings, minimally, of fruit. I am just fruity I guess.
And my "drink" at Starbucks (which, unfortunately, I go to, because Small World does not really have the breadth): the light, no whipped cream mint java chip frap. Because I like my gratuitous caffeinated calories with fewer calories.
I wonder.
Also: I need to write. BLARG.
. . . . . entries for 29.3.08 . . . . .
Master Jeff is a special, special guy. Kelsey and I have resolved to take one of his classes together one semester or other, along with a totally sweet EEB class that kind of teaches naturalism.
From Mark, one of my comrades at PPN. Freakin' hilarious.
. . . . . entries for 28.3.08 . . . . .
I am disheartened. All the Bob Ross videos have been removed from Youtube. :(
Pretension is alive and well on this campus. Alive and "fucking well," as Cibo Matto would have it. Licking finger, start to wonder. . .
. . . . . entries for 27.3.08 . . . . .
So I have a plan for next fall:
WWS 325: Civil Society and Public Policy
Basically about nonprofit and charity. COOL.
ENV 341: Water, Savannas and Society: Resilience and Sustainability in African Drylands
What it sounds like. SUPER COOL.
CWR 203: Creative Writing (Ficton)
Well yeah.
PSY 101: Introduction to Psychology
Well yeah again.
MAT 103: Calculus
Taking this one pass/D/fail because I fear calculus, especially intro calc here. :P The idea is to try and re-learn precalc over the summer, and look over calc stuff so I don't fall on my ass in the class itself, since my roommates had trouble with it.
. . . not that any of this is set in stone. Just ideas. Thoughts, if you will.
. . . . . entries for 26.3.08 . . . . .
Love. This. Song.
Bright side: I now feel completely independent from the hour of the day, and I have a small stash of ginger chunk cookies left over from the bribe-people-to-host study break, courtesy Yianni, my provider of study break leftovers.
Other dark side: Diderot neglected, FRS proposal unwritten. Alas. Better get on one or the other of those.
Well. My sleep cycle is officially broken. I woke up about half an hour ago from a pseudo-sleep induced by melancholy induced by my TRULY MORONIC failure to go to my draft conference. Luckily, my professor was nice about it, so I'm going to a conference tomorrow. Phew.
I want certain persons to get out of my subconscious, because I am sick of these variation-on-a-theme dreams I've been having.
. . . . . entries for 25.3.08 . . . . .
If whatever archive of facebook stati proves a better overall record of my life than my own blog, it will be a sad thing indeed.
I slept little, but I finished my HUM paper. Tonight there is more procrastination-incurred pain to be had. Woo!
And I am in class, and people are trickling in.
. . . . . entries for 24.3.08 . . . . .
I am headed back to Princeton this morning, and from now until May 19th, I will be running the academic gauntlet, with a major assignment or two due pretty much every week.
I am bringing knitting and a sketchbook back to school with me, for stress relief. I am also bringing a silly dress (JP Chartreuse) for the freshman formal, should I decide to go. And iPod. I am bringing iPod.
I need to call and set up a driver's test at some plausible juncture in time. I also need to schedule a dentist appointment.
ARRRRRRG this stress is my fault.
. . . . . entries for 20.3.08 . . . . .
I think I might be a Quaker, if the prospect of those tiny, mostly-silent meetings didn't scare me so much.
Does anyone else feel like we're entering into a second cold war?
| What Your Shamrock Says About You |
 You are balanced, nurturing, and sympathetic. You understand people and love to help them. At times, you get too involved with what's going on in other people's lives. It's hard to remove yourself. You consider yourself a lucky person. Luck always seems to be on your side. You are stylish, in a classic sort of way. You are particular about how you like things. |
WEIRD.
. . . . . entries for 18.3.08 . . . . .
So I helped my mom do the taxes today. How bizarre.
Also drove around, mostly in Troy, with my godfather. That went pretty well.
I intended to play video games today. I did not do that.
Tomorrow: dermatologist and curried Colin. And I should work on FRS and/or HUM as well. Arg.
Bee-loud is a Yeats word. I enjoy it immensely. I thought of it because I thought, I am busy like a bee. Bees are handy in the English language. They're handy little purveyors of nectar and metaphor.
Going driving. Be back sometime. Hopefully focusing on driving and not on the high and lofty ideals behind driving, because that gets me nowhere. Really. You don't even know how nowhere it gets me.
. . . . . entries for 17.3.08 . . . . .
I do not like doing work over break. Do. Not. Like.
Happy St. Patrick's Day, boys and girls. Sadly I have no green chocolate for you.
. . . . . entries for 16.3.08 . . . . .
| Your Heart is Blue and Green |
 Your heart is open and dynamic. You are flexible, optimistic, and expressive. You bring honesty and intimacy to relationships. You're good at expressing your needs to your partner. |
Home I am, and at UR is Frank. We all know how that goes.
The sunset is very pretty and warm, but it's cold up here in the now-thawing Frozen North.
I'm syncing my old 60-gig, forever-breaking iPod to my music library on my laptop, because somehow or other, old 60-gig, forever-breaking iPod is functional. I'll bring it back to school with me. It shall be grand.
Walked Buddy with my dad, which was nice. The damn goofball ran out into the road by the causeway, so we had to run after him amidst the traffic. There were at least four little crushed turtle shells by the side of the road on that route. Kind of disheartening.
Tomorrow: meeting with folks at SICM and hematologist.
Tonight: WRI paper draft, since it's due tomorrow at 5. Writing about race is not fun. It's not academic enough. It's too real.
. . . . . entries for 13.3.08 . . . . .
I has a Frank!
. . . . . entries for 12.3.08 . . . . .
Midterm the nature of which is uncertain + Frank coming + Locke to read = anxious Erin.
. . . . . entries for 11.3.08 . . . . .
Near the top of my list of unconventional yet compelling reasons to be in college is the sheer hypnotic pleasure of listening to professors talk. Do other people experience this, or is it just me?
Conversation with one Daniel Earle:
Dan: How've you been, Erinmonster?
me: I'm okay.
I have beautiful chocolate (seriously - prettier chocolate I have never witnessed) and an orange and an 8:30 class.
Dan: All things considered, not too shabby.
me: indeed.
and actually up to speed on schoolwork for once.
Dan: Oh my lord.
me: only because Moliere and Mme de Lafayette were both short and page-turning, because of rhyming couplets and sexual frustration, respectively.
Dan: And when you combine the two, you have our lives.
And the lives of all of those we hold dear.
me: xD
rhyming couplets and sexual frustration?
Dan: Yes.
Rhyming couplets and sexual frustration.
me: BUT SERIOUSLY
The Princesse de Cleves = MOST SEXUALLY FRUSTRATING BOOK EVAR
Dan: ...Or was it sexual rhyming and frustrating couplets?
Perhaps it was rhyming frustration and sexualized couplets.
me: I like that one better.
Dan: I think we're winners with all of them.
. . . . . entries for 10.3.08 . . . . .
Spitzer. . . really? Seriously?
 | If I were a Dead Russian Composer, I would be Sergei Prokofyev. I was born in the late 19th century and was a child prodigy, composing at a very young age. I kept this talent up, earning myself quite a name and fully exploiting the bragging rights. I was disliked by Stalin, however, and I died the same day he did. My most famous work is "Peter and the Wolf." Who would you be? Dead Russian Composer Personality Test |
. . . . . entries for 9.3.08 . . . . .
I can't help but wonder just what it takes for a blog to become a big deal. I don't really want my personal blog to be a big deal, obviously - although I think my new header is pretty enough to be worthy of fame - but I wouldn't complain if the (at the moment somewhat neglected) enviroblog and litblog actually got some kind of readership. I just don't know what there is to it.
Oh well.
The Princess de Cleves is kind of silly and pulpy, and apparently one of the primary sources for the much-beloved film A Knight's Tale. It strikes me as strange that I have to read silly, pulpy things for class, but hey - it's better than Aristotle. :P
So apparently it's 9? What the hell?
Daylight Savings Time does INDEED feel like a raw deal this year. Losing an hour of sleep/work/whatever. . . man.
. . . . . entries for 8.3.08 . . . . .
| You Are Basil |
 You are quite popular and loved by post people. You have a mild temperament, but your style is definitely distinctive. You are sweet, attractive, and you often smell good. |
I'm happy I'm basil. . . but I perceive that Blogthings knows not the Thai basil. :P
Decision: this blog needs more clutter.
"It is bodiless and invisible, but can possess humans, and can be imprisoned in pentagonal shapes; for several decades, it was imprisoned in The Pentagon by the Illuminati, and fed on traffic fatalities."
I love Wikipedia. I love Wikipedia and H.P. Lovecraft.
Almost half of all Princeton students are not on financial aid of any kind. This freaks me out when I think about it. There are families that can afford to pay that much for their kids to go to school - families whose children I hear chatting about their vacations at the very fanciest resorts of the Caribbean. I don't think I'll ever really understand that level of privilege. I'm not after it for myself, and if I had the money for it, I'd like to think I wouldn't live that extravagantly.
But I don't know. I am an oddball, every inch of me an oddball. I am more aware of my oddballity all the time.
. . . . . entries for 7.3.08 . . . . .
So when Stephen Colbert was talking to the dude about his book, The Lucifer Effect, their discussion kind of ended up being a debate about the nature of God, free will, and good and evil. The theological component, while implicated by the title, wasn't really the focus of the book, but Stephen made it the focus of the discussion.
I was surprised. I know Colbert is Catholic, and I know he "teach[es] Sunday school, motherf@*ker" (as he said himself), but to see him choose that interview, and to choose to warp its content toward the religious, was honestly offputting. He ended up asserting a kind of moral clarity with regard to the whole God-Lucifer-good-evil-freewill-thing: evil and Hell do not exist because God wanted them to, but because Lucifer, Adam and Eve all exercised free will and rebelled against God, thus producing these divisions and hardships.
As I understand it - and maybe I don't really understand it? - angels don't have free will. Free will, I thought, was part of Mankind's schtick. If that's so, then Lucifer must have rebelled as part of the will of God, and Colbert's assertion is false.
So I wonder about Colbert and free will (and all that goes with it). It actually kind of haunts me.
Palette swap! My blog is now black because it saves energy. Black screen = not trying as hard as the white screen.
. . . . . entries for 5.3.08 . . . . .
I have a summer job!
. . . . . entries for 4.3.08 . . . . .
I wonder if I could be part black, way back. My sister does have those unaccounted-for poofy lips, and a quarter of our ancestry is ambiguously labeled as mottled European, with some bits and pieces hearkening back to the Mayflower. I certainly don't look it, but who knows?
I'm reading this thing on racial passing by Randall Kennedy. Some parts are really weird - like too damn weird, why the hell did he include this weird - and others are very thought provoking, i.e. the story written by a woman affiliated with the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America entitled "Dark Cloud," like the video game (seriously Playstation, didn't you know you were RACIST?), about a woman who learns her husband is part black, and proceeds to kill him and their daughter.
And in Plessy's case, African heritage was "not discernible in him." So. . . what then of race?
. . . . . entries for 3.3.08 . . . . .
Today I solved two logic puzzles and read a little Hobbes and started working out this particular bit of medical crap. I am *pissed* about the medical crap, but I always am.
Today I was also informed that we're going on some manner of family vacation, maybe to Stratford for theater or maybe elsewhere, for a week shortly after I finish this semester. This kind of pisses me off too, because if I get this internship I am going to be really damn busy this summer, and it would be nice to have time at home to be with friends and not confined in close quarters with just family *before* the work starts. It's not that I dislike my family. It's that I know how these things go.
If I don't get this internship, I shall have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off applying to other things. If all else fails, I'll spend all summer trying to write stuff that I've started, in one way or another. I thought about the nature of that task when I looked over the application for summer funding from the Lewis Center for Creative and Performing Arts, and I realized I have no especial use for funding in cranking this stuff out - just a lot of research, which I could probably conduct without too much trouble at local libraries and online. If I wanted to publish anything hardcore, I'd hire an editor or something to advise me on fact-checking and so on, but I don't really think anything like that's going to go down.
Back to if I *do* get this internship: I'll have to go home some weekend to get my driver's license, and incur a lot of expense in the process. Arg.
Some things in life just make me go "arg."
"Eloquence, with flattery, disposeth men to confide in them that have it; because the former is seeming Wisdome, the later seeming Kindnesse." -Tommy Hobbes, on Man in Leviathan.
Something to keep in mind.
. . . . . entries for 2.3.08 . . . . .
Master Jeff has written a very special facebook note.
"I want those Maneki Nekos. I want 'em bad. All of them! 'All of them!' I want hundreds of them, thousands of them in all sizes and colors, and lack of color. I love them! I want a countless army of them! 'All lined up!'"
And so on, with three identical pictures of MNs attached, with the captions
ALL
OF
THEM.
What a guy.
come home?
.:people:.
{ting}
she looks like the real thing
{mari}
out and about
[kelsey]
THIS IS AMERICA
{yianni}
stop being depressed
{alisa}
other
[shannon]
close and far
{frank}
islands where no islands should go
[cassie]
eating knowledge
{colin}
my dm
[emily]
shoulder to the wheel
[brian]
nostalgic for fantasy
[nicole]
industry insider
{elle}
angry enviro
[matt]
never heard of miyazaki
[pirate dan]
are you reading this?
[olga]
distracted
[messiah dan]
messiah/believer
{max}
approach focus
[natalie]
wait a minute
[susan]
solitude
{greg}
manbeargreg
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.:skin:.
turtles! turtles! by araglas
(heavily modified by yours truly)